Substack is a fantastic platform for creators.
In fact, I’ve been using it myself as a central part of my content strategy.
But there’s one thing about Substack that’s making me lose my mind.
It’s NOT an autoresponder!
And yet, I keep seeing writers ditching their traditional email services thinking Substack can replace everything.
It can’t. And here’s why.
Substack Is Not An Autoresponder
Substack looks gorgeous on paper.
You can publish articles, build an audience, and send emails to your subscribers—all from one platform. For free.
It’s like if WordPress and MailChimp had a baby.
The problem?
Many creators think Substack’s email functionality is good enough to replace their traditional autoresponder.
I saw a creator last month proudly announced, “I’m canceling my Kit subscription since I have Substack now.”
I nearly had a heart attack.
Because while Substack does let you send emails for free…
It’s missing critical features that serious creators need to monetize their expertise.
No Welcome Sequences
One of the reasons why you’re using an autoresponder is because it allows you to send automated emails.
That’s a cornerstone of my passive income strategy.
For those who aren’t familiar, a welcome sequence is a series of automated emails new subscribers receive immediately after joining your list. These emails introduce you, build trust, and often include your first offer.
They’re essential.
Let’s say you publish weekly on Sundays and someone subscribes on Monday. With Substack, they’ll wait almost a full week before hearing from you again.
By then, they might have forgotten who you are or why they subscribed. The initial excitement is gone. The connection is lost.
But Substack doesn’t support welcome sequences.
The only thing you can do is send one welcome email. That’s it.
Which means there is no way to sell and make money from your digital products on autopilot.
Zero integrations (LOL)
The second fatal flaw is Substack’s lack of a public API.
For the non-technical folks, this means Substack can’t talk to your other tools.
Want to automatically add buyers of your course to a separate email list? Can’t do it.
Need to tag subscribers based on their behavior? Nope.
Looking to trigger emails when someone completes a specific action? Sorry.
This is a deal-breaker if you’re selling digital products or courses.
I sell online courses that have generated over $1 million in sales.
And one of the core elements of my business is being able to track who bought what so I can target my offers accordingly.
With Substack alone, you’d be flying blind. You wouldn’t know which subscribers have already purchased your products.
Integration capabilities aren’t some fancy “nice-to-have” feature. They’re essential for creating a profitable content business.
The Subscriber Export Nightmare
So how do Substack creators get around these limitations?
Most do what I call “the monkey work.”
They manually export subscribers from Substack and import them into their regular autoresponder. Every. Single. Day.
What a waste of time.
If you spend 15 minutes on that every day…
That’s 7.5 hours a month just copying and pasting email addresses. Time that could be spent creating content that actually makes money.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t start an online business to do stone-age work.
What I Use Instead
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not spitting on Substack.
But thinking that it can replace your autoresponder is stupid.
Here’s my setup that gets the best of both worlds:
I use Substack as a platform to build my audience and publish content. Then I automatically sync new subscribers to MailerLite (my autoresponder of choice).
This way:
- I leverage Substack’s built-in audience
- New subscribers immediately get my welcome sequence
- I can create advanced automations and segment my audience
- All my tools can talk to each other
I’ve created a simple automation that does this sync in the background. No manual exports. No wasted time.
The setup takes about 10 minutes and works with most major autoresponders like Kit, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, and even newer platforms like Beehiiv.
This approach gives me the full power of email marketing while still benefiting from Substack’s platform advantages.
The Bottom Line
Substack isn’t a replacement for your autoresponder. It’s a complementary tool.
The fact that Substack allows you to send emails for free is still mind-blowing. But if you’re serious about making money from your expertise, you need more than what Substack offers.
Use Substack as a platform to build your audience.
Use a proper autoresponder to it.